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Paint's Journal 3
Captain Raptor said enthusiastically, “Paint, you're a genius!" Paint beamed and then looked hopeful again saying, "Err, yes?" He thought to himself, "I'm a genius alright. I'm so smart, I don't know how smart I am!" Over the next weeks, Captain Raptor would have regretted those words if he’d been paying attention to anything besides his new water purification plant. Almost everything that Paint suggested, the YDU did, because Paint was now an officially recognized genius and his ideas had to be good. When he said they should move all the living quarters and supplies to one side of the SS Lollipop to save having to clean the other half, the YDU happily scurried about accomplishing this. When Captain Raptor came back, he found the ship listing to starboard in an alarming way and roared at them to set things right. When Paint said they should butter their bread before they toasted it and save time after, the YDU almost burned down the ship. The toaster caught on fire and his advice to “throw something on the flames” to put it out resulted in Little John’s dumping a large bottle of oil on the flames. Everyone said that geniuses couldn’t be expected to get all the details right, and it is well known that the best thinkers are foiled by small-minded assistants. Little John didn’t really mind these comments since he didn’t understand them. After he said they should take all their baths at once and never have to take another, everyone agreed this was particularly brilliant; that is, it would have been if they could have just not ever gotten dirty again. One of them (nobody remembered who) started the happy idea that pirates are supposed to be dirty, and this lasted until Captain Raptor came back after one of his disappearances and reeled away from them. Their stink, he said, was driving away customers. It had been days since his last stroke of genius and Paint was growing worried. Being a genius was harder work than he’d expected, always coming up with new plans to make life better for the YDU. Captain Raptor hadn’t even mentioned his brilliance for several weeks and people were beginning to forget. He needed to come up with something even better than the water idea, something to astonish Captain Jack and make him retire his own brain in order to take advantage of Paint’s. With this in mind, he established the Brain Trust, a special team to come up with new ideas for the embetterment of the Lollipop (or, ideally, to approve his ideas once he had them). Naturally, he selected the best thinkers on the ship: Scurvy’s broken animatronic parrot, the mimic snake (who he particularly liked because, having overheard Captain Raptor telling Paint he was a genius, the snake repeated it whenever anyone might be interested) and New Guy. Here is the log of their first meeting: Paint: Alright, we gotta come up with something brilliant for the Captain. He relies on us. Snake: Paint, you’re a genius! Parrot: Rawk! Genius! New Guy: (mutters something in an unknown language) Paint: What if we paint the ship backwards? That way, it will look like it’s sailing away when we attack enemy boats. Ships, I mean. Snake and Parrot together: Genius! Paint: I’ll get the gang on it. What else? New Guy (in barely understandable Cantonese): You get paint? Paint: Oh, you’ll have to get that for us. I’ll get you some money from somewhere. But we want it to be a surprise for the Captain. (Rain water washes into the meeting room from above, soaking all attending) Paint: (sputtering) Stinkin’ water! And now look what it’s done. Parrot: (shorted out, starts twitching and saying “genius!” over and over again) New Guy: (switches off the Parrot, muttering something in an unknown language) Paint: We gotta do something about this water! Rain, every day. Gets so a man can’t think! It gets in the food and makes it taste like soup, no matter what we eat. It gets in the rum and makes Scurvy sober, which nobody wants to see. We gotta fix that! Snake: Genius! Paint: Maybe some sorta weather control thingamabob. Like in those movies. (Grabbing a soaked piece of paper, he tries to draw something, which looks mainly like a stick figure with a pirate hat and a magic wand.) Paint: Arrr! I can’t invent nothin’ with all this rain. Even… (he seems to be trying hard to think) .. even those famous science guys like Gilbert and Sullivan wouldn’t be able to think with all this whooshing down on them. Stinkin’ rain! New Guy: You want… no water? (Interested for the first time, he finds a sheet of paper that is miraculously dry. He starts sketching a complex design, seemingly made of retractable umbrellas that could be released in bad weather to protect the entire ship. He mutters in his native tongue while he works.) Paint: (watching with his jaw dropped) That looks stinkin’ complicated. No, no, we can’t do that. Gotta keep it simple for the boys, you know. (grabbing another piece of paper, he tries to draw something which looks mostly like a ship covered in smiling stick figures with a big black blobby thing over it). Ya see, we geniuses might understand stuff like that. But I got a better idea. We get lots of plastic wrap, like they use to wrap up fish and stuff? And we cover the ship with it, stern to… er… to the other end. So we’ll be all snug and dry, just like the fish. New Guy: (puzzling out what Paint is saying, begins to shake his head hard and babbles in rough Cantonese) We… gots. No no, not working. Nobody gots. We gots no, no, no things. (He starts to pant dramatically, pointing at his mouth) Paint: You crazy, New Guy. Snake: Paint, you’re a genius! Paint: (modestly) I know. New Guy: (begins muttering in his own language, furiously gesturing). The following day, despite New Guy’s attempts to prevent them, the YDU set to work, buying rolls of plastic wrap and trying to seal the ship. They wrapped it around masts, coated the ropes and turned Scurvy into a mummy as he slept off his rum. He woke up just in time to prevent them from suffocating him. By the time Captain Raptor came back, the ship was almost sealed. It was pretty hot under all the plastic wrap and rain water had gotten trapped between the layers, making them stick together in a disgusting mass. Their work had gathered lots of watchers, most laughing and confused. Paint kept one eye on them, proud that his brilliance had such an audience. Captain Raptor, seeing the crowd first, sauntered up to see what all the excitement was. Hah, some fool was doing something crazy to their ship, some stunt no doubt. It was a 60 foot luxury yacht, what a waste of a good ship, just like his own Lollipop. In fact, this ship seemed to be crewed by the exact doubles of the YDU, and that flag was a clever copy of his own… Pushing his way through the crowd, Captain Raptor leapt on board. “What? WHAT? What the devil are you idiots doing now?” Paint stepped forward, a little uncertainly, but hopeful that he’d gotten another brilliant idea. “We gots this plan to keep the ship dry, Captain. Ya see, the plastic wrap…” He trailed off, as the Captain clearly wasn’t listening. “Keep the ship dry, keep the ship…dry? Yes! Paint, you’ve done it again! You’re a genius, absolute first rate mind! We’ll go down. We seal the ship and go down, into the deep, if we’re attacked. Down!” “Paint, you’re a genius,” said the Snake. Paint beamed. “Gather up for another meeting of the Brain Trust!” New Guy groaned and sank to the deck on his knees, clutching his head.